studying spinning maple seeds

You know, the "helicopters" that you threw as kids. Looks like playing around with maple seeds has gone to a whole new level. I found this cool photo of a maple seed in an article for the California Institute of Technology.

Here is a quote from the article-

"Maple seeds could represent the most basic and simple design for a miniature helicopter, if the swirling wing could be powered by a micromotor," says Lentink. Single-rotor helicopters have been built and flown successfully with wing spans of roughly a meter, but never at the scale of a maple seed.

Maple Seed Necklace!

And the half necklace!